Love, Life, and a Bartender
by lifeluver
Summary: Sounds like he was trying to protect you. A drunk Brooke talks to an impartial stranger about her relationships.  Brucas oneshot.


A/N- Latest Brooke/ Brucas oneshot. The song Ever the Same (Forever with you) by Rob Thomas inspired me, which is weird, because it didn't make it into this story, which by the way has a bunch of songs that I DO NOT OWN. Okay. Just thought I'd get that out there.

Anyway- just a oneshot, basically Brooke talking about her relationship throughout the long years, but to an unbiased stranger. Enjoy!

xxxxxxxooooooooooooxxxxxxxxxxxx

"Fill me up, would ya?" demanded the slurred voice from down the counter.

"Coming up, miss," responded the aging bartender, casting a quick glance at the clock before filling up the young woman's glass a little less than he normally would. She'd been there for hours and she was the only one left in the bar.

The girl finished the glass in one long sip, and banged on the counter to request another refill.

"Its getting about time to close up miss, how about you call someone to come pick you up?" said the bartender kindly. He'd learned many years ago that it is always better to be nice to a drunken person; they're more likely to listen to you that way.

She looked up from her empty cup and surveyed him. She then reached into her black purse and pulled a crisp, hundred dollar bill out and placed it on the peanut shell covered counter.

"I think I'd like to stay, thanks."

The bartender paused for a moment, then pocketed the bill and said calmly, "As you like, miss," as he refilled her glass.

Another few minutes passed in silence as the bartender stacked the chairs up and started wiping down the counters.

"Another?" asked the girl. "Please?" she added as an afterthought.

Dropping his rag, the man walked over and poured her some more.

"So what brings such a pretty young girl to a place like thison a Friday night?"

"What's it to you?" the girl replied moodily.

"Just thought you might want to talk about it. You looked kind of lonely there."

Once again she looked at him closely, and the bartender had the feeling he was being studied, like she was deciding whether he was worthy to talk to. Finally, the loneliness winning, she responded.

"Having a bad day. Or bad year, really."

"Oh yeah? Boy troubles?" asked the man. He'd heard this story before, in his profession, but she certainly was paying him well to nod along and express sympathy.

She laughed hollowly, and answered, "You could say that. Yeah, I suppose I am having boy troubles. And girl troubles, and just all kinds of troubles. I'm a troubled girl." She snorted humorlessly into her glass.

"Want to talk about it?" suggested the bartender again, now washing out the used cups and plates.

"Not really."

The man shrugged and flipped on the radio to fill the silence. Lily Allen's Smile came on.

_At first when I see you cry  
Yeah, it makes me smile  
Yeah, it makes me smile  
At worst I feel bad for a while  
But then I just smile  
I go ahead and smile_

The girl laughed that cold laugh again, catching the bartender's attention.

"Yup, that's it. This song is perfect. It's got it all right. I see him sad, well just too bad for him. Yup, he's the one missing out."

"Ah, so he cheated on you, huh?"

"With my best friend. Again! Can you believe that? I mean, not only is it so clichéd that he might as well have been screwing his secretary, it just plain tacky to do it with the same person, twice." The girl said all this very fast, surprising the bartender, as it was the most she'd said all evening. He got the impression that being quiet did not come naturally to her, and the more alcohol she had, the looser she became about her personal life.

"Hm," replied the bartender, then, with a stroke of inspiration that came from overhearing many such conversations between two women at his bar, he added, "It's his loss."

"Damn right it's his loss!" the girl said vehemently as the song lyrics continued in the background. "I mean, what's that fake blonde got that I don't?" She took another big sip from her drink. "I'm pretty hot. Don't you think so? He should be worshipping me!"

The bartender didn't reply, he simply refilled her drink when she gestured at it. It got quiet again, as she seemed to be pondering her glass, deep in thought. A few minutes passed, as the bartender started mopping up the dirty, beer-stained floors.

"He used to, you know?" she said abruptly, in a much more subdued voice. "Worship me. He'd do all this sweet stuff. I guess I kind of treated him badly for a while there, but he stuck with it. He decorated my locker with all these pictures of us, declared to the world that he was the guy for me. That kind of stuff…" she trailed off with a reminiscent smile on her face.

"Would you like to call someone to pick you up?" the bartender asked again.

The girl let out a long sigh. "There's no one to call. Nope, everyone's busy. Lucas is probably screwing Peyton. Peyton is probably screwing Lucas. And Naley is probably having some disgusting pregnant sex. Ugh."

The man stared at her for a moment, but she didn't seem to notice. "And there's no one else? Parents, anybody?"

"Nope. Just me. All alone now. They've all got their lives, and they just left me behind. No one cares about Brookie. Not when she needs help anyway. When you need her help, its all, 'Brooke come over, I've missed you.' But when I need their help, its all, 'God Brooke, can't you see I'm busy?'"

Resigned to the fact that he wasn't going to get this girl out of his bar any time soon, the man said, "Why don't you tell me about this boy." At least he'd have something interesting to listen to while he cleaned up. Besides, the girl was bound to pass out pretty soon, given how much she had had to drink.

"He's just a jackass. Just another stupid, good-for-nothing bastard. I don't need him.

"Except that I thought he might be different. You know? I thought that just maybe he was different. That he cared. That he wasn't like all the other guys." Her voice was rising as she got angrier. The bartender nodded along; he had heard all this before.

She paused for a moment, taking another sip of her drink. "He was smart," the girl who called herself Brooke said quietly. "Always quoting these people, I hardly ever knew what he was talking about. But he didn't talk down to me; he treated me like I was just as smart as everyone else. It made me feel nice.

"Then I found out he was making out with my best friend. My best friend!" Her voice had gotten shrill again, and the bartender winced.

"I mean, I knew he had liked her before, but I thought maybe he had gotten over her. That he liked me now. But no, as soon as I had something, the stupid bitch had to swoop in and take it from me. She didn't even like him before! She treated him like dirt, but once he was unavailable, all of a sudden he was irresistible. Didn't matter that he was my boyfriend."

"Sounds like you were madder at your friend than your boyfriend," observed the bartender, reluctantly finding himself interested in the young woman's plight. At some point during her story he had stopped mopping up and had sat down on a chair facing her.

Brooke paused for a moment; the man noted with pleasure that he had surprised her with this response.

"Well, I guess so," she started, sounding a bit more sober. "I mean, we had only been dating for a little while, so I wasn't so much mad as I was… disappointed. You know? Like, I thought for once that I had found this guy who was really different, better. And he let me down. But Peyton, she knew what he meant to me, yet she did it any way. That really hurt."

The music in the background had changed, now playing Absolutely by Nine Days.

_This is the story of a girl_

_Who cried a river and drowned the whole world_

_And while she looked so sad in photographs_

_I absolutely love her when she smiles_

"So what happened then," inquired the curious bartender.

Brooke shrugged. "Peyton and Lucas lasted all of, like, ten seconds, and we made a pact. Hos over Bros." The hollow, cold laugh had returned. "And that worked out great, until, you know, there was another bro. But that wasn't for a while."

"And the guy? You said this happened twice, so he was still around?"

"Yeah. I stayed mad at him for a while, but the annoying little bastard wormed his way back into my life." The words sounded venomous, but she said them with a slightly affectionate smile until she caught the stranger looking at her and shook it off quickly.

"So I had a new boyfriend, and he had a new girlfriend, but those didn't really work out, and we ended up alone. Together. So we were friends again, he let me stay in his house. He even painted this door red, because he said I was the girl behind the red door." Silence encompassed her for a moment, relishing the happy memory.

"Then I found the pictures of Peyton. Yup, in his closet he had this whole box of things from when they were together. Mixed signals much? That should've been the end of it right there. But me, being all stupid, let it go on.

"Right before I left for California that summer, he told me he wanted to be with me. Gave me this big, long speech. It was so romantic. God, I actually believed him. What a load of bull shit. He always was good with words."

"So you stayed? You didn't go to California?" asked the bartender, thinking that this was turning out to be a rather long story.

"No way. Miss out on the beaches and all the hot guys with absolutely no daddy issues? Of course I went. It was fun as hell too. But I missed him like crazy. I wrote all these letters, but I couldn't send them.

"Anyway, while I was living it up in Cali, he and Peyton were rebuilding _their_ friendship. Great, huh? So when I came back I casually informed Luke that he could have a strictly non-exclusive relationship with me. I wanted to keep my options open, just in case he decided to turn into a jerk again, right?"

23 by Jimmy Eat World had come on the radio now.

_It was my turn to decide  
I knew this was our time  
No one else will have me like you do  
No one else will have me, only you_

You'll sit alone forever  
If you wait for the right time  
What are you hoping for?  
I'm here I'm now I'm ready

"Er, yeah, of course," answered the bartender when it became clear that the girl was looking for a more active audience to her story. For some one so reluctant to get started, she certainly was liking it now.

"So that worked out for a while, he was so sweet and did all that nice stuff I was talking about earlier. And, uh, I was treating him kind of badly like I said earlier. You know, I was sort of screwing up our non-exclusive relationship, and, uh, I suppose, looking back, I did some mean and unfair stuff. But whatever. He forgave me, which I guess was pretty cool of him, and we got together for real."

"Sounds nice." The bartender was seriously starting to wonder how old this girl was.

"It was. We were good for a while. Hell, I was even trying to match my college choices with his."

'College choices? Oh God,' thought the bartender.

"But then everything went to hell. Guess it wasn't to much of a surprise. I don't think anyone ever thought we would really last. Iwas the party girl, not the kind to be tied down. I found out that they kissed again. That hurt like hell. It was like, I put myself out there, out in the danger zone, and I just got punished. Pnisihed for believing that love existed, that I could get it. That guys were worth it.

"Peyton broke our Hos over Bros pact, broke it into a billion tiny pieces and then flushed them down the toilet. She made out with him, again!"

Brooke sat their, seething.

The song changed again, now playing All Good Things Come to an End, by Nelly Furtado.

_Flames to dust  
Lovers to friends  
Why do all good things come to an end  
Flames to dust  
Lovers to friends  
Why do all good things come to an end  
Come to an end come to an end_

"We fought, and eventually I ended it." She looked forlornly into the wide selection of different drinks behind the counter.

The bartender stared at her for a while. Then finally, "But wait, didn't you say the girl made out with him?"

Brooke looked back up at him, confused. "Yeah, so?"

"So it sounds like he wasn't really into it, was he?"

"Well, I don't know, I wasn't there. And besides, that's not the point! He lied to me about it!" She was practically yelling now, and the bartender decided it was probably a good idea to shut up about then.

Then again, he had never listened to his instincts. "Just from a guys perspective, we don't normally like to tell girls things that will upset them. He was probably worried about how you'd react. Actually, if he really wanted to be with her, he would've told you. So he could dump you and be with her. Sounds like he was protecting you to me."

The bartender waited with bated breath for her reaction to this. He worried he had crossed a line.

Instead, the girl moaned, "I know," and put her head against the dirty counter. "I know, oh God I know." Her voice fell was almost incomprehensible as the alcohol got to her and sleep began to take over. "I love him, I just loved him so much… hurt…scared…" she drifted off, murmuring to herself.

The bartender glanced at the clock, which read close to one in the morning. He found the girls phone in her purse and scanned through her contacts. He called the girl listed as Haley first, but she didn't pick up. He tried a few more people before he came to the name Lucas. He looked at the sleeping girl next to him, then sighed and made the call.

Xxxxxxxooooooooooooxxxxxxxxx

About fifteen minutes later a handsome blonde man entered the bar.

"Brooke?" he asked running over to the dark head bent over the counter.

"She's fine," said the old man from his spot in the back of the bar, putting away the last of the glasses. "Just had a bit too much to drink."

The blonde boy known as Lucas nodded nervously. He stroked the unconscious girl's hair in a loving way, before lifting her up the way he had carried Peyton months earlier out of the school and turning towards the door.

"She really does love you, you know?" said the bartender hesitantly.

The boy turned and looked at him for a long moment, then down to the girl in his arms. He nodded curtly, then turned to walk out, trying his best to fulfill the promise he made her months earlier, the promise to rescue her from the world. Even though he had realized long ago that when it came to her, his best just wasn't enough.

The bartender shook his head as the door clanged shut behind his customer. In the bar 'Here with Me' by Dido played softly.

_And I won't go   
I won't sleep  
I can't breathe  
Until you're resting here with me_

And I won't leave  
I can't hide   
I cannot be  
Until you're resting here with me

A/N- Please read and review, I love to know what you guys think. Means a lot to me, have a great day!


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